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Palm/Passion Sunday, 03/24/2013
Sermon on Luke 22:14-23, by Nathan Howard Yoder
14 And when the hour came, [Jesus] reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it2 until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God." 17 And he took a cup, and hwhen he had given thanks he said, "Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 iFor I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine guntil the kingdom of God comes." 19 jAnd he took bread, and hwhen he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, k"This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, k"This cup that is poured out for you is lthe new mcovenant in my blood.3 21 nBut behold, the hand of him who betrays me is owith me on the table. 22 For the Son of Man goes pas it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!" 23 And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this. (ESV)
The hour has come. We begin: in the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Children remember catchphrases, aphorisms they recognize as belonging distinctively to their loved ones. My mother's father ("Bigdaddy") had a phrase he would always use when winding up for a political tirade or a critique of the course of society in general: "Let me tell you this...!" He'd adopt a tone of righteous certainty, and you'd know exactly what would come next. Dad's father ("Granddaddy") would say, "Lemme give you a pointer": a humble suggestion as to how to do a job better. My Dad's mother ("Grandmommy") would inevitably say on Christmas morning when she opened her presents, "well I declare, I just don't know who to thank" (to which my mother would reply under her breath, "you could thank the one who stayed up til 3 a.m.").
There is one phrase I will always associate with my father. Whenever presiding at a meeting or teaching a class, he will invariably begin with a simple, 5-word statement. Let us honor the hour. In a tone peaceful, but firm. Mouths close, ears open, and the work begins.
We are here today to honor the hour, the hour that St. Luke indicates in his gospel: "And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him." St. John, too, employs this turn of phrase in his Lord's Supper narrative: "Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end" (13:1). Our Lord often spoke of the outcome of his ministry, his coming, and his Passion, as an appointed hour, his hour: a time ordained by God in which His plan of salvation would be accomplished. Jesus spoke of this "hour" throughout the gospels, and every time he associates three elements with it: suffering, necessity, and glory. A triad that St. Paul underscores to the Galatians: "[We] were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons" (4:4-5).
Our Lord was betrayed that hour he reclined at table, betrayed that night by friends - through outright plotting, in Judas' case; or selfish, cowardly denial, in Peter's; or through thoughtless neglect, as the disciples drifted into oblivious sleep while the Lord prayed and wept, alone in Gethsemane. Suffering in necessity, according to the will of God. "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).
This and every hour, we who belong to Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit are called to honor his hour.
We honor the hour of suffering. His suffering, for our sake, has become through our baptism a call to suffering, for his sake. A baptism that constitutes a new creation, a change of being from denying our Lord to denying the world, denying the way the world wants us to see ourselves and act in it. Indeed, more than denying it: dying to it, for in Christ Jesus we are already dead to it, dead to any of the countless forms of disobedience by which we dishonor our Father in Heaven. When we pray, "create in me a clean heart, O God," we honor the hour of Christ's suffering and death.
We honor the hour of necessity, the hour in the garden when our Lord prayed, "not my will, but yours, be done." Out of necessity, the Holy Spirit calls us to confession. Individually, together, we confess our grievous fault before God in heaven, and in the unity of the Holy Spirit, we hand it over to Christ. Words convey power in meaning. So it is with the word "betray". Both in English and in Greek "betray" literally means, "to hand over." Jesus was handed over to the Sanhedrin and the Romans by Judas' plotting, handed over to the scorn of those watching and waiting by Peter's cowardice, handed over to loneliness by the disciples in their napping. Handed over to the cross by our sinful disregard for the will of God. But through that cross, Christ changes the equation. Having handed him over in sin, we now hand our sin to him, who has conquered sin, death, and the devil. He calls us to take the burdens of others upon ourselves, and lift them to him (take this, and divide it among yourselves). We share in their suffering because he bore the suffering of all: in accordance with his Father's will, an absolute necessity.
And finally, we honor the hour of glory. In his Holy Supper, Christ commands (again, necessity) to take, and eat: his body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins, and pointing to the hour of the marriage feast which will have no end, the final hour of complete fulfillment. In the glorious words of St. Paul, "the hour has come for you to wake from sleep, for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed" (Romans 13:11). As near as bread in the hand: the Word, the presence of Christ, on the lips and in the heart. Suffering, necessity, glory. "It is finished." Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again!
Today and every day, we honor his hour. We remember his suffering, and what that means for us and for our ministry. We confess our sins, handing them over to the hands marked through with the nails, and we know that he takes them, in love. We celebrate his Supper, his presence, his forgiveness for us. And we look to the hour when time will be no more, the goal of the Kingdom to come.
The hour has come, and the work begins. Thanks be to God!